Hello everyone, I had a slow leak in the AC system which I fixed. It was a loose schrader valve on the high side gauge port. Pulled a nice vacuum which was still good after about 1 hour of waiting, so I'm very confident the leak has been fixed. However, when I slowly introduce fresh 134a the gauge just goes up and up without the compressor ever kicking in. It stops at around 80 since that's what the pressure in the can is I assume. Every other car I ever had to fix the AC on, the compressor would have kicked in at around 40 to 60. I tried keeping the car in maintenance mode (ICE engine on) and also just in READY mode. No change. As far as I know the compressor runs off of the 200VAC converter right? So the ICE engine doesn't have to be on at all? AC is on in the car on full blast all doors open and on recirculation. I know the compressor might not come on because it senses low refrigerant but that makes a refill impossible. How can I "make" the compressor come on and do it's job? Is there an override of some sort for Priuses? Or the compressor is dead? Is there a way to check that without getting a new/refurbished one?
It should come on making a racket or not . Do now check fuses and inverter ac cabeling . Pressure switch unplugged? It's built into the metal line.
Prius AC is a variable pressure system. You can't accurately fill the system based on pressure; standard is filling the system based on weight.
Checked cabling and besides a bit of road grime looks intact. Cleaned it off and looked at contacts they look clean. Checked all the fuses related to the AC system. Inside fuses are all ok. Engine bay fuses are all okay. There are 4 relays that are related to the AC system. Pulled them and visually inspected the pins and they look ok. Is it worth it to test the relays? How likely is it that a relay is shot? Thanks, I am aware and had a scale ready to fill it to the right weight. The problem though is that it won't suck in ANY refrigerant since the compressor wont kick in and do it's job.
There are some relays responsible for other things, like the cooling fans behind the grille, but not really for whether the A/C compressor runs. That runs on 3-phase AC fed to it from the inverter, doing what the HVAC amplifier tells it to do. If the HVAC amplifier isn't telling the compressor to run, it probably wants to tell you why it isn't. Have you read any trouble codes? Blink (a/k/a Flash) Codes – How to. | PriusChat
